Page 34 of Atticus
Atticus nods. I take a steadying breath before finally scooting over on the couch. He pulls me in, arms secured snugly around me as I rest my cheek against his shoulder. I expect him to seem boney, uncomfortable, with all the steel I know he has beneath his synthetics and exoskeleton. Instead, he’s soft and warm, just like a human.
Then he begins toying with my braids, the way he does when we watch TV together, and it’s like I’ve died and gone to heaven. Before I know it, I’m telling him all about my day: lunch with Becca and Denise, Becca’s crappy boyfriend, the discussion with Jack Gunther and lending him my book. I revisit my conversation with Carlisle too but only briefly.
“Let’s not talk about her,” Atticus redirects, and he rests his chin on my head. “My diagnostic scan indicates an increase in your distress when we do.”
I both love and kinda hate he’s learning to read my body better than I am, that he can identify when a conversation or an idea or worry should stop before it builds to uncontrollable levels. It shows a level of maturity and awareness humanity has a tendency to lack.
“Are you excited for tomorrow?” I ask him, scared of what might happen between us if I don’t fill the silence with something. “I talked to Trey. It’s all arranged. Our first viral video. I’m gonna post it during the game, get the buzz started.”
“You’re rather convinced it’ll go viral,” Atticus says. “How can you anticipate algorithms like that?”
“It used to be my job,” I reply softly, noting how his chest doesn’t rise and fall with breath and I hear no pulse, no heartbeat. And yet the comfort and heat emanating from him remains. “In a way.” I tread cautiously. “I know it must seem weird, that I don’t want to talk about it, but—”
Atticus hushes me, brushing his hand along my jaw. He tilts my head up and meets my gaze. “Not today,” he reminds me of my words from the car. “It’s all right, Lucy. I’m not going anywhere anytime soon. Okay?”
Relief floods me, and I can’t remember the last time I was this relaxed. This content. This happy.
“Not today.” I snuggle into him again and letting the tingles from the sweet strokes of his hand carry me off to somewhere safe and loving. “Thank you.”
“This is something you’ll never have to thank me for.”
The TV is never turned on. I tell Atticus all about the team meeting where I tried to rein in the other teachers—Sullivan and Bryant specifically—from using anti-android verbiage like “bot” and “garbage can” and “not real.” I listen with relief as he’s appreciative and grateful I’ve spoken up for him, and agrees that he never has liked those terms. I was on the right track, after all.
Before long I’m telling him plenty of other things too. Like my plan to start a teacher’s blog and possibly a vlogcast about what it’s like working with a bionic. How I want to change not only St. Morgan’s perception of an android working at Vautrin, but the greater nation about androids in general.
And when my eyes begin to droop and my ramblings take a turn to nonsense, my thoughts, my beliefs, everything just coming out of me because it’s nice to say them aloud to another soul—a soul, I remind myself,not just a machine—he doesn’t attempt to stop me. As I drift away, held there on my couch, I imagine his lips pressing against my forehead.
But when my eyelids flutter open, he’s there, and his lips are precisely where I dreamed them.
A kiss. Sweet, affectionate. And one I wouldn’t take back for the world.
“Where did you learn that?” I ask.
“I researched more human ways of showing affection. I apologize. Perhaps I should have requested permission first.”
“You don’t need to apologize,” I murmur. “I liked it. What if we fall asleep like this?”
“Then I’ll carry you to bed.”
“But what if I’m too heavy for you to carry?”
His chest rumbles with soft laughter. “I promise you, Lucy, you’re not.”
“Atticus?”
“Hmm?”
“If I kissed you, would you tell anyone?”
“No.” Atticus lightly rubs my back, between my shoulders. “Not a word. Why, is that what you want?”
I don’t answer, instead leaning up, and Atticus meets me halfway. When his lips meet mine, I’m not greeted with the taste of plastic or tough, unnatural synthetic skin. His mouth isn’t that much different than mine.
I should stop,I tell myself desperately, even when I don’t stop anything at all.I’m tired, I’m not thinking straight. I should just stop.
When our kiss breaks, I’m without words, gazing into his white eyes that are currently backlit and glowing in the dark.
“That can’t happen again,” I tell him softly, trying to mask my own breathlessness.
